Page 8 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

The sky is just beginning to bruise with pre-dawn when I rise, my muscle memory driving me more than I thought. I haven’t slept. Not really. Sleep is indulgent. A weakness I can’t afford in this place.

From the terminal console in my quarters, I sift through surveillance logs.

I haven’t yet secured live access to Celeste’s apartment, but the recordings from her office and the common halls are enough to keep me tethered.

Last night, she lingered at the glass wall longer than usual, unmoving, watching her reflection until the screensaver swallowed it whole.

I watched her do nothing for thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds.

She doesn’t realize that stillness is a language too.

I toggle through angles. The lab corridor, observation deck, and east wing security terminal. None of it scratches the itch beneath my skin. The script is quiet this morning.

The corrupted surveillance node—the one that triggered the blackout—wasn’t my doing.

I checked the diagnostics three times. Someone else accessed the backdoor protocol.

The timestamp aligns with a three-minute window during the system reboot.

Too convenient. I don’t like coincidences.

And I sure as hell don’t trust ghosts in machines.

This place is riddled with fractures.

And one of them walks like a man named Felix Rourke.

It’s been a week since I officially began at Miramont under the guise of biomedical surveillance consulting.

But the truth is sharper. Rourke engineered my clearance.

A favor for a favor. I’m not here to secure protocols.

I’m here to secure a person. To gain access to what Celeste buried years ago and ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

No, it’s more like I’m here to make sure it falls into Rourke’s hands.

Which, ironically, might be mine.

Yesterday, he summoned me to the inner greenhouse. He said he prefers to meet in places where life fights to thrive. The room smelled like dirt and secrets.

“You’ve made progress,” he said, brushing dew from a pale orchid. “But remember your purpose. Watch her and understand what she’s hiding, even from herself. Then neutralize the risk and get all the information you gather to me.”

“Neutralize?” I asked, feigning confusion.

Rourke smiled. “Don’t play soft. That’s not why I chose you.”

He didn’t need to say the rest. I know how far he’s willing to go to protect what Miramont built. What she built.

Now, as I step into the sterile corridor of the clinic’s lower access tunnel, the morning chill grips me like a memory. I cross paths with Mara and nod once. Her head is down, a tablet glowing in her hands. She doesn’t acknowledge me. Good. That means I’ve blended in.

Mid-morning is uneventful. I plant a new micro-node in the north stairwell and adjust a second one in the breakroom ceiling. By noon, I find myself wandering near Celeste’s floor under the pretense of routine system checks. That’s when I see him.

The man from before. Alec Rennick.

He’s speaking with her—close, but not close enough to touch.

I watch from a hallway mirror, angled perfectly to reflect the pair without being noticed.

Their exchange is brief and awkward. His eyes linger too long.

She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t scowl either.

She just stands still, absorbing him like data.

I’ve seen him in her files. A ghost from before her emotional containment protocols. A loose variable. I make a note to assess the threat level.

When they part ways, I continue down the hallway, brushing past Alec without a word. I log his keycard usage in my mind. Second floor, trauma wing. Interesting.

Later, I return to my terminal suite and queue up the latest footage from Celeste’s lab session with Subject 17. The camera feed shows her standing just behind the observation panel, calm at first, dispassionate and clinical.

But then something happens that makes Celeste go rigid.

Her hands freeze mid-note, her eyes locking onto the boy with a look that doesn’t belong in a lab.

For a moment, she looks… unmade. Unraveled.

Her lips part, then tighten. She stumbles backward, recovers, and shuts the session down without another word.

The camera catches her leaving the room quickly, almost too quickly, like she’s trying to outrun the echo.

I lean closer to the screen, my pulse steady but heavy.

What the hell just happened?

That reaction wasn’t scientific. That was trauma. Real and raw. And it didn’t come from the subject.

It came from her.

I rewind the video and isolate the clip. Then I play it again. And again. There’s something in the cadence. Not in the words, but in the breath between them. It’s a rhythm that scratches at a locked door inside my mind.

As dusk settles and the corridors thin out, I keep watching her.

I monitor her movement across the clinic’s network of halls and labs, my eyes following every twitch of her fingers and every flicker in her expression.

I need to know where she’ll go. If she chooses her backup apartment—three floors above the clinic—I’ll wait, observe, and study.

But if she walks out the front entrance, I’ll follow.

Not closely and not obviously. Just enough to track her and see where she keeps the parts of herself that the clinic never sees.

And when she’s gone, whether for five minutes or fifty, I’ll come back.

I’ll enter her workspace with surgical precision, plant what I need to, and extend my reach. Maybe even sneak into her apartment upstairs and plant all the necessary devices, because knowing her is only the beginning.

I need to possess the shape of her silence. I need to understand the fracture.

And I’m running out of patience.

As the last traces of daylight fade from the clinic’s sterile windows, I remain at the console with my eyes locked on the feeds, each flicker on the screen sharpening my resolve. Tonight, I move beyond observation.

She moves through the west wing hall with her usual grace, clinical in pace but frayed around the edges.

I wait, curious and alert.

She passes the elevator without hesitation. She doesn’t pause and doesn’t swipe her badge for the third floor.

She doesn’t return to her backup apartment.

A subtle pivot. Intentional. My pulse responds.

I shift gears, rising from my seat with practiced calm and pulling on a jacket thick enough to blend into the night’s chill. Tonight’s forecast is overcast with brief pockets of moonlight, just enough to hide behind.

If she’s not sleeping here, then she’s going to the other place. The one that’s five minutes down the mountain path. The one with no cameras, no nodes, and no access.

At least not yet.

I follow her from a distance, far enough not to cast a shadow beside hers. The sky’s grown a dull charcoal, with fog nesting over the mountain ridges. She walks with her shoulders squared, brisk and determined. She’s heading for her primary apartment—the one outside the clinic bounds.

I keep to the trees as the path curves. She lives five minutes out, and I have already memorized the floor layout of her apartment. Tonight, I will study it in real time.

Once I’m certain she’s home, I wait.

An hour passes, and lights flicker behind drawn blinds. There are no signs of movement. I return to the clinic and head straight for the administrative floor. The air feels sharper now, colder. My steps echo in the long hallway.

Inside her office, I disable the silent sensor and slip in. It smells faintly like lavender and ink. Then, I install a new surveillance node beneath her desk and another behind the vent plate. It’s small, flawless, and impossible to notice.

Then, I head upstairs to the third floor above the clinic. Her secondary apartment.

I unlock the lock using a magnetic override and let myself in.

It’s spartan and organized, with everything in grayscale. It feels like a place where someone hides from the world.

I place the last two nodes—one in the bookshelf and the other inside the wall fixture above her bed.

Now, I’ll see more. Hear more.

Understand more.

And when the moment comes, when the truth surfaces, I’ll be the only one prepared.

Because what haunts her is mine to hold.

And I’m already beneath her skin.